Page 8 of Carry Me Home
I fanned the cards out in my hand and quickly reorganized them to my liking, from useless to promising, with high cards I wasn’t ready to part with to the far right. Three of hearts, six of clubs, a pair of tens, the queen and jack of spades, and the ace of diamonds that I couldn’t do anything with, but I wasn’t going to hand over fifteen points unless I had to. It was a decent hand. I liked my odds.
“I’m not home yet,” he said. It sounded like a dodge.
I glanced at him. His cards were still in an untouched heap in front of him. Catching my gaze, he scooped up the pile, considered them without changing their order, and set them down again.
“So tonight doesn’t count?” I teased. I flipped over the top card on the deck and my stomach dropped. Ace of hearts. Goddammit. Well, at least he knew I hadn’t stacked the deck in my favor.
“It counts, Janie,” he said simply. Firmly.
My mouth went dry.
He didn’t look at me as he ignored the ace and slipped the top card from the stack, added it to his pile, and put down the seven of diamonds, lining it up neatly with the ace.
I blinked. Had the seven been in his hand, or was it the card he had just picked up? He had moved so fast I couldn’t be sure.
Suddenly I had the feeling I was going to lose. Badly.
“So, really. How long are you home for?” I asked. We moved through our first few turns quickly, neither of us keeping anything. The line of unwanted cards grew longer. “A week? Two weeks?”
“For good.”
That surprised me. My gaze shot to his face, but he kept his eyes on his cards. “You’re out? Essie didn’t mention that.” This was different than just surprising her with a visit. Essie worried about him all the time. She would have shouted the news from the rooftops, if she had known.
“She doesn’t know,” he said, confirming my suspicions.
I cocked my head. “Why doesn’t she know, Jack?”
He rolled a shoulder.
I figured that meant he wasn’t going to talk about it. Fine. I wouldn’t push. I picked up the king of clubs. On his turn, he picked a card from the deck and used it to form a set with a ten, jack, queen, and king, all diamonds. Dammit. I chewed my lip. I could put down my ace of diamonds and play it off his set, but I wasn’t going to. Not with the ace of hearts still sitting there, calling my name.You know you want me, Janie.Ignore all those cards between us. I’m worth it.
“Four months ago, I took a bullet to my shoulder. It made me medically unfit to perform with my unit. I could have stayed in uniform, but shit. I’m thirty-four. I figured enough was enough, so I resigned my commission.”
“You were shot?” I whispered. I stared at his shoulder like I could see through the fabric of his shirt to the injury underneath.
His eyebrows went up in amusement as he made his next play. “More than once. But it was the last one that went septic and left me with nerve damage.”
“Essie doesn’t know.” It wasn’t a question. If Essie had known her twin brother’s life was in danger, nothing could have kept her from his side. “Your mom doesn’t know.”
Jack rubbed his fingers along his jaw line. “I figured it was better to tell them I was in danger after the danger had passed.”
My mouth dropped open. “But what if the danger didn’t pass? What if you had…” I swallowed the sudden thickness in my throat. It was hard to say the word aloud. “Died?”
“I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
I shook my head. “You can’t control everything, Jack. Especially not death.”
“I’ve done a good job of it so far.” His cheek twitched under his eye. He put down another set and discarded the ace of clubs. “Your turn.”
I stared at the ace. “There are two aces down. Kind of risky, don’t you think?”
“No.”
I looked at him. He held up his card—hislastcard. His sets were better than mine and worth more points, and he could go out at any second. If I picked up that line of cards to get the aces, I would lose for sure. There was no way I could turn all those cards into sets before he went out, and anything left in my hand would count against me.
I couldn’t resist.
I scooped up the cards with a flourish.
